Serendipity is an
interiors/gift shop, and includes a traditional tea room. Set in the centre of
the Yorkshire Dales market town of Leyburn, the store offers a wide range of
gifts, furniture, greetings cards, kitchenware, soft furnishings, and jewellery
over two floors.

With many thousands of
product lines from dozens of different suppliers, there were several different
challenges which led to the owner, Adrian Walton, looking for a solution. It was
very difficult to keep track of stock. Administering purchases and returns was
very time-consuming. There was no accurate way of finding out what was selling
well or not, and which suppliers provided the most popular ranges. In short,
Serendipity needed an EPOS system which was simple to use, and would make
running the business much easier.

After looking at several,
Adrian decided
on the Myriad EPOS system from Orcus. Many factors were taken into consideration
– price, functionality, the quality of the service and support, but the most
important was that staff could use it without needing a degree in Computer
Science.

Most Serendipity staff
will admit that their IT skills were not brilliant. In fact, many of them had
never used a computer before in any capacity. Says Office Manager, Allyson
Walker,

“A
few members of staff were used to simple cash registers, and the thought of
using a proper EPOS till terrified some of them. We needed a system that was
easy and quick to use, so that they would be comfortable with it from the start.
We had a play with Myriad during the demonstration, and it worked exactly how we
wanted it.”

After giving the
instruction to Orcus to provide the system, Serendipity staff began the process
of categorising their products in preparation for going live. With thousands of
products to get through, Allyson was initially concerned that it would take
months before they could go ahead with the installation. However, the EPOS tills
were set up to sell through ‘department’ code buttons. This meant that stock
which had not been entered on the system could still be sold in the way it had
been on the cash register. Allyson appreciated this gentle
transition:

“It
was great, as it meant that the staff on the shop floor initially had the same
department buttons they were used to, and they were happy to use the scanner for
stock which I had put on the system. If an item had a barcode label on it, they
were confident that it would scan and be recognised. Being able to print our own
barcode labels with the price on has really helped us with this.”

As well as comprehensive
training, Allyson and the rest of the staff benefitted from the support provided
by the Orcus technical team:

"Initially we were all quite daunted by the prospect of installing
the system, but Orcus staff took us through everything before, during and after
the set up. The support has been fantastic, every time we needed to call we got
straight through to someone who helped us out."

Using Myriad transformed
the business very quickly. When the first set of sales reports were ran, there
were a few surprises too. Says Adrian:

“We
have always thought we knew which areas of the business were contributing the
most, and whilst we were right on most of it, there were some things we had
overlooked. Now the system gives us all the information we need to make the
right decisions about what we buy and how it is
sold.”